Classic Nutmeg Grater

Pros: Well, I suppose technically it works; very inexpensiveCons: Doesn’t work wellRating: 2 out of 5
First posted 3/10/2005

My first nutmeg grater was a standard metal rasp nutmeg grater. I really wasn’t that fond of it. It’s basically a small, rough grater in a half-cylinder shape. I couldn’t understand the point of that, because most of the nutmeg stayed on the outside of the grater when you grated it–it didn’t actually go through the holes, so there was little point in the area inside that was presumably meant to catch and direct the nutmeg.

The grater did grate the nutmeg into nice, small, powdery bits, but it took quite a while to do so. It was also very rough, so woe to anyone who grated a nutmeg small enough to get their fingertips close to it.

It was made of cheap metal, so it didn’t stand up to water well. This meant you had the choice of leaving it with nutmeg stuck all in it, or having rust. And oh, did the nutmeg stick. Because of the way the rough grater holes were designed, the nutmeg mostly just stuck into the spots between and around them. I’d use my fingernails to dig it out, but there was a limit to what I could get.

The grater had a small chamber at the top large enough to hold one or two whole nutmegs, but the lid just flapped loose–it didn’t click or latch shut in any way, so unless you stored the grater upright (difficult unless you wanted to hang it on something, since the bottom was smaller than the top) the nutmegs would simply roll out.

It was certainly an inexpensive nutmeg grater, but I wouldn’t use it again. It only barely did its job, and it did a very poor job indeed.